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Escape from the killer car?

MORE and faster public transport, buses that run on time, plenty of safe
cycleways, freight travelling by canal instead of along crowded roads, fewer
cars, reduced air pollution, a big drop in the number of children killed by
speeding motorists, more tranquil streets where people can chat at their front
doors, hillocks rather than mountains of scrapped cars, sights of special
scientific interest or natural beauty untouched by motorway developers … and
not so many traffic jams.

It sounds like paradise. And it might even be possible in our lifetime if
the British government and the public take to heart an astonishing report
released last week by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution after
two years of deliberation.

Astonishing because the commission outlines policies which could signal a
dramatic shift for Britain from its ever-increasing dependence on the car
towards efficient transport alternatives which would also reduce the risks to
health and the environment (see This Week).

The commission, and its chairman Sir John Houghton, deserve nothing but
praise for this brave report. It would be nice to think that the government
could rise to the numerous challenges the commission poses and begin to
rethink transport policy seriously.

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Up to now, however, there has been little real chance of that because the
Department of Transport might as well have been called the Department for Road
Building. Now there is some support for real change within the government,
quite a few ministries – and maybe even within the transport department
itself.

But nothing can be taken for granted; it is still all too possible that the
report will be mothballed. That, after all, is what has happened before.
Twenty years ago, the Independent Commission on Transport told the government
that “the many serious transport problems confronting the nation … cannot be
adequately tackled by palliatives alone. Nothing short of a major change of
course will suffice.”

Naturally, the major change never materialised and the number of cars and
heavy lorries continued to rise virtually unchecked. Since 1974, car traffic
(measured by the number of passenger-kilometres) has more than doubled, and
road freight (measured by tonne-kilometres) has grown almost as much. Rail,
bus and cycle traffic have declined.

All that successive governments seem to have learnt is that experts can be
ignored and that it is always possible to find space for more roads and cars.
And, more regrettably, the public bought the official line that there was no
viable alternative. Critics of the car came to be seen as simply enemies of
progress rather than as people with a different perspective.

This time the government should understand that there has been a major
shift. The links between the car, air pollution and damage to health are
established: air pollution may shorten the lives of tens of thousands of
people each year.

It is also ludicrous for the government to both acknowledge the urgent need
to cut greenhouse gas emissions and back policies that obviously increase
fossil fuel consumption.

And it has become plain that building more roads actually creates both more
transport problems than it solves, and, at the same time, intensifies
divisions in society. It is, after all, the poor who end up living in the
houses that line the main roads and motorways, and it is they who suffer the
worst noise and pollution.

The Royal Commission, with its authoritative backing for wide-ranging
alternative policies, is also challenging the public to think again. Change is
possible, and health, safety and – a pleasant environment do not have to be
sacrificed for the sake of efficient transport, whatever the car lobby may
say.

The earliest opportunity for the government to signal that it is taking the
report seriously is the next public spending round. Roads are the only form of
transport to have a long-term investment plan. The commission wants to cut the
road-building programme in half and an essential part of the package – invest
the money in public transport instead.

For a couple of years now, the Treasury has had its eye on the transport
ministry’s ever-burgeoning road programme. So the Treasury bureaucrats,
concerned with curbing public expenditure, must see the commission’s report as
a very useful piece of ammunition.

But the report is more than just an excuse for cuts. There are 110
recommendations and they should be seen as a whole. Drivers need to have a
carrot as well as a stick. They need alternatives if they are to leave their
cars at home. That means producing a long-term plan to improve the quality of
public transport – and making cycling safer.

People should put pressure on their MPs and use whatever power they have,
individually or in groups, to ensure that this report does not suffer the fate
of its predecessor. Otherwise, in another twenty years, we will be farther
than ever from paradise, stuck in some ultimate gridlock wondering why nothing
was done in the 1990s.